Abstract—Commercial off-the-shelf autonomous underwater
vehicles (AUVs) are commonly equipped with short range radios
(for high bandwidth, low-cost close range operation) and satellite
modems (for low bandwidth, global operation). In a coastal
observatory it should thus be possible to exploit an AUVs’
proximity to the coast to use the short range radios when vehicles
are within useful communication range of coastal base stations,
and to use satellite communications otherwise. Measurements in
the coastal ocean using a Slocum glider and a network of elevated,
coastal base stations show that the useful communication range
depends strongly on two parameters 1) the distance between the
vehicle and the base station, and 2) the local sea state experienced
by the vehicle. Here we describe measurements of communication
quality in a coastal setting over 206 glider surfacing events at
ranges between 2.4 and 16 km from the base station. The glider
was instrumented with an accelerometer. At each surfacing, the
accelerations experienced by the glider due to the local sea
state were recorded concurrently with communication quality.
Analysis of these measurements provides the first evidence that
it is possible to predict communication quality from the sea state
at a vehicle’s location and the distance between the vehicle and
the nearest base station. This enables a simple, yet useful, piece
of logic that allows onboard decision making on whether the
vehicle should use its short range radio or its satellite modem.
We discuss how this finding enables online modification of lowlevel
communication protocol parameters.